Tom Petty Special Mostly For Friends

July 5, 1985|By Noel Holston, Sentinel Television Critic

Native son: Only relatives, one-time neighbors and true-blue fans of Gainesville-bred rocker Tom Petty are likely to find much of interest in Southern Accents, a half-hour documentary and record promotion that MTV is showing Saturday night at 11. And even they may find their patience tested.

Nothing much happens and, as Petty has sung, ''The waiting is the hardest part.''

Since they formed 10 years ago, Petty and his band, the Heartbreakers, have become major stars playing a brand of rock that recalls the Byrds, Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones. Southern Accents, the LP from which the Saturday night MTV special takes its title, is high on the Billboard charts now.

The MTV special combines an interview with Petty, in which he talks about the album and his Southern roots; fragments of a Heartbreakers jam session on the roof of the fabulous Don CeSar hotel in St. Petersburg Beach; and scenes of Petty driving around old haunts in Gainesville. There's also a frustratingly short excerpt from his ''Don't Come Around Here'' video, an elaborate Alice in Wonderland dreamscape in which Petty is cast as the Mad Hatter.

The half hour's most satisfying segment is a sort of budget video -- black-and-white footage of lower-middle-class neighborhoods, fishing holes and souvenir stands set to the wistful strains of ''Southern Accents,'' Petty's song about the erosion of the South's distinguishing characteristics.

Videolio: Stephen M. Steck, president of WMFE-TV and -FM, has been elected chairman of the board of Florida Public Broadcasting Service Inc. The service is responsible for, among other things, coordination of projects among the state's public TV stations and production and distribution of Today in the Legislature. . . .

I Am Able, a WFTV-Channel 9 special produced by Trish Weaver, has won first place in the ''special needs'' category of the National Council on Family Relations' 1985 film and video competition. WFTV's program dealt with the rights and needs of the disabled. . . .

Ever noticed how, on cable TV's Weather Channel, the forecaster almost always stands to the left side of the map, thereby blocking the view of Florida? Maybe if we wrote to The Weather Channel, we could persuade them to stand in front of California half the time. The address is 2840 Mount Wilkinson Parkway, Atlanta, Ga. 30339. . . .

Television Parts, Michael Nesmith's low-key half hour of music and comedy videos, will be seen for the last time in its Friday, 8-8:30 time slot tonight. Its ratings the first three weeks have been pathetic, but NBC hasn't given up entirely. Highlights of the completed episodes will be repackaged as a one-shot substitute for Saturday Night Live July 27, the hope being that Parts just wasn't ready for prime time. . . .

Not many people watched Midas Valley, which ABC recently fed to NBC's The Cosby Show, but those who did see the movie were pretty irritated. The ''movie'' was a pilot, complete with cliffhanger ending, for a Knots Landing-type serial set in California's Silicon Valley. ABC decided not to make it a series, so the loose ends will dangle forever. . . .

Either actress Loretta Swit has gone carnivorous or something is amiss. Swit, best known for her role as Maj. Margaret Houlihan on M A S H, is one of several celebrities starring in a new line of Burger King TV commercials. The others include Mr. T, Emmanuel Lewis and Bruce Weitz. But Swit, according to several published accounts I've seen, is a strict vegetarian.